A “terrified” couple on holiday in Gran Canaria were stunned when their doorbell camera caught the moment a huge blaze erupted outside their home 2,000 miles away.
The pair, who do not want to be named, were enjoying dinner on the Spanish island when their terrified daughter called them to say a fire had been started outside their house in Liverpool.
The mum, from the Bootle area of the city, told the Liverpool Echo how there had been a knock on their door from a “strange man” alerting her daughter that the bin bags, which had been put outside the front of their home for collection the next morning, had been set on fire.
She claims the fire was minutes away from setting the home ablaze and blocking her daughter’s “only exit” from the property. Merseyside Police confirmed it’s investigating after reports that a bin had been set alight on December 10.
The mum said: “My wife and I were in Gran Canaria at the time celebrating our honeymoon as we never had one when we got married three years ago. My daughter, who is 19, had stayed at home with the dog and we were out for dinner when she rang me.
“She rang and I immediately panicked. She said a strange man had knocked on the door and said ‘do you know your bins are on fire.’
“A guy came along and helped her put it out, she was running back and forth with jugs of water to put the fire out. She called me and I had to get a friend to come over to help her and make sure she was OK.”
Thankfully, the family’s neighbour had a ring doorbell camera that captured the incident. The footage shows two young males walking up to the home before one of them takes what appears to be a lighter out of their pocket and uses it to set a bin bag on fire.
They are then seen running away from the scene as the fire erupts. Within minutes a large blaze can be seen on camera and a police car is also spotted driving past.
The mum added: “They set them on fire and the whole thing went up. My daughter was in the house and had the curtains closed so she didn’t know the fire was going outside.
“She only realised because a man walked past and said to her. If he didn’t knock and tell her she wouldn’t have known and our whole house could have gone up in flames.”
The mum says her daughter was “terrified” by the incident and added: “My daughter is panicking every time our bins go out now wondering what is going to happen, will they go up [in flames]? It seems to be happening all the time at the moment around here too. “The night ours were set on fire somebody else’s down the street were too.”
A spokesperson for Merseyside Police said: “We were contacted on the evening of Tuesday 10 December to a report that a wheelie bin had been set alight outside a house on Mildmay Road in Bootle.
“There was no damage to the house and nobody was injured. Enquiries have been carried out.” Anyone with information is asked to DM @MerPolCC or call 101 quoting reference 24001039820.
